New Study Shows How Much Millennials Are Spending On Home Renovation

Renovation spending among younger homeowners is on the rise amid a strong renovation market, a new Houzz research report reveals. Among the report’s key findings: Younger homeowners and first-time buyers are driven at least in part by a desire to customize their homes.

The 2017 Houzz & Home survey gathered information from close to 107,000 registered users of Houzz, including nearly 56,000 homeowners who renovated in 2016. Read on for more insight into how homeowners are renovating, how much they are spending and why they choose to renovate.

First-time buyer spending is up too. First-time buyers also bumped their spending level last year, averaging $33,800, up 22 percent from 2015. By contrast, long-term owners saw just a 3 percent rise in average spending year over year (YOY).

Older homeowners spend more. While younger and first-time buyers are trending upward in their spending, older homeowners still spend far more on their home renovations than the younger group. In fact, those ages 55 and older spend about three times the amount of those ages 25 to 34.

Plastic gains popularity. Slightly more homeowners used credit cards to fund their renovation projects compared with the year before. Overall, 23 percent of homeowners used credit cards for renovation work in 2016, compared with 21 percent the year before.

Among first-time home buyers, credit card funding is especially popular — 39 percent used plastic to pay for their projects.

Kitchen remodels average $19,100. Remodeling a kitchen is among the most popular renovation projects, and the average homeowner spend for doing so stayed steady year over year, at $19,100 for renovations in 2016, compared with $18,900 in 2015.

A year from start to finish. Planning an interior remodel takes an average of four to eight months, according to the survey, with kitchen planning being the most lengthy process, at an average of 7.7 months. Construction averages 2.5 to five months. In total, an interior remodel project averages about a year from planning to completion.

Budgetary matters. The No. 1 renovation challenge, cited by 36 percent of homeowners who renovate, is staying on budget. Finding the right products and materials was the second most common challenge, followed by finding the right service providers.

The Houzz & Home survey was fielded from February to April 2017 and gathered responses from 106,678 registered Houzz users. The report relies on the subset of responses from 95,920 U.S. homeowners, and 55,687 U.S. homeowners on Houzz who renovated in 2016.